Dark Horizons

CHAPTER FOUR: DARKENING

Kirara settled down with her burdens about fifty feet away from the two brothers, partially hiding their touchdown behind a corpse of trees. She gently released the back of Kagome’s shirt from her jaws. Shippou jumped into Kagome’s arms from Kirara’s back as the human girl trembled and leaned against Kirara’s furry side for support. Kagome thought, ‘Sesshoumaru was going to kill me. Kill me! And Inuyasha is petting him, comforting him … loving him … while I shake here, feeling so mortal and so afraid.’

Miroku and Sango raced over to her. Sango had retrieved her weapon and Miroku clutched his staff as they reached Kagome’s side.

“Kagome?” Sango asked and placed a gentle hand on Kagome’s shoulder. Kagome went stiff then leaned into the comforting touch.

“I want to go to Inuyasha!” The words were out of Kagome’s mouth before she could pull them back in. Tears gushed out of her eyes. She tried to wipe them back faster than they fell but she couldn’t keep up. Sango squeezed Kagome’s shoulder; her own eyes ached with unshed tears for her friend.

“We’d best stay here for the moment. Until Inuyasha tells us we can approach. Although Sesshoumaru doesn’t look in any state to start fighting again,” Miroku said softly, his eyes fixed on the two demons. It was so strange to see Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha … touching gently, not fighting, not hurting. It even looked like they were laughing about something. Miroku shook his head and thought, ‘We have to get to the bottom of this joining thing before … before what? … before it doesn’t matter anymore, before we lose Inuyasha to Sesshoumaru completely.’

“Was it just me or did Sesshoumaru seem … stronger?” Sango asked.

“That’s because of the joining,” Shippou piped up.

“What do you mean?” Sango asked.

“We need to know everything there is to know about joining, Shippou,” Miroku added.

“I only know what my father told me through old stories. But I’ll tell you all of it. When two demons join their powers combine. The strengths of the one become the strengths of both. But more than that, the power … well, it escalates. The power keeps reflecting between the joined ones through the bond, building and evolving over time. The stronger the demons are to begin with … well, you get the idea.”

“Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru are already powerful … very powerful on their own,” Sango breathed, her one hand clenching her weapon tighter.

“And after just a few hours of bonding, Sesshoumaru’s strength is so much more,” Miroku observed. “What will happen once they are joined for years … centuries? There must be an end-point where they can get no more powerful?”

Shippou’s face looked drawn suddenly, he picked at his vest and his gaze moved inward.

Kagome noticed his distress, “Shippou, what is it? There’s something more you aren’t telling us.”

“In the stories my father would tell me, there was this fear … a legend really,” Shippou closed his eyes trying to remember the scrap of information that clawed at the back of his mind. “There was this legend that when two were joined that were special, very powerful … that something would come from the Outer Dark, would be drawn down here and … it would be bad.” Shippou shuddered and wrapped his paws around himself. At the wide-eyed looks that Kagome, Miroku and Sango gave him, Shippou quickly added, “But that’s just a story. And even if it were true it doesn’t mean that Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru are the joined ones that could do it.”

But despite Shippou’s assurances, all their gazes swung back to the two white-haired demons that looked so longingly at each other.

<<>>

Jaken could not help himself from running to his lord’s side when the full demon had suddenly jumped out of Inuyasha’s arms only to throw the hanyou to the ground and straddle him. Jaken wasn’t sure if it was play or not, but he wouldn’t risk it. With Jaken’s hat sliding off to the side of his head, staff jangling in one clawed hand, he breathlessly called out, “My lord! Are you all right? Perhaps I have a potion that would help you recover from--”

“I am fine Jaken,” Sesshoumaru answered, still observing his brother underneath him.

Inuyasha was vainly trying to get Sesshoumaru to explain about the Seer. “Aren’t you going to tell me about this Seer person you suddenly think we need to see? And what about the darkness a minute ago—mmph!”

Sesshoumaru had silenced the irate hanyou by placing one fingertip against his lips. The urgency that the darkness and their Father’s memory had brought had slipped away from Sesshoumaru’s grasp as his body and mind became achingly aware of his brother’s warm form beneath his.

“I just want to think of you for a moment. There will be so many times that we will have to talk of other things besides ourselves. I just want another moment of looking at you right now,” Sesshoumaru explained.

Inuyasha was skeptical at the wisdom of this, but he closed his lips under Sesshoumaru’s finger and allowed his brother to look upon him.

Jaken blushed furiously, but couldn’t help but watch out of the corner of his eye how Sesshoumaru drank in the sight of the hanyou beneath him. ‘It’s just like in the stories … so much love and … desire.’ Jaken scrunched that thought down. It was all well and good to admire his lord at all decent times, but to observe his lovemaking was wrong. Jaken sighed, walked a few feet away and turned his back. But he swore he could still feel the heat the two demons were giving off.

Sesshoumaru brushed his fingertips across Inuyasha’s glossy white mane that was fanned out against the dark earth like a sheet of snow. A small triangle of his supple flesh showed where his robe parted at the base of his neck. Sesshoumaru longed to nuzzle that skin. The scent of Inuyasha rising up in waves to his nostrils was intoxicating: vanilla and honey. ‘So sweet.’

Inuyasha suddenly looked away from Sesshoumaru, turning his head to the side, a flush burning his cheeks. ‘Good gods, his gaze is like a caress on me. I can’t bear it. If he keeps this up, I’m going to burst with Jaken watching.’

Sesshoumaru grasped Inuyasha’s chin and forced him to look up at Sesshoumaru’s face. “I want you to see me looking at you, Inuyasha. See me admiring you so you know how I feel. And so I might see if… so I have hope that you’ll come to … to perhaps … to--”

“Let myself feel the same way about you as you do about me?” Inuyasha finished for him, his voice rough with desire. “We’re brothers, Sesshoumaru. Isn’t this … isn’t this wrong?”

“No.”

Inuyasha took that no, the definiteness of it, the solidity of it, and kept it tight to his chest. “I’ll lose everything, Sesshoumaru, if I admit … if I give into this.”

“What will you lose?”

“My … my friends,” Inuyasha spoke quickly then. “I know you have a bad opinion … maybe, no opinion … damn, you’ll think its weak, but I’ve been alone for so long. I used to think I needed no one … but I do.”

Sesshoumaru smiled sadly, “Precious one, I’m afraid no matter what you do, they will be lost to you soon in any case. Even if they continue to be your friends until they die of old age in their beds … that will only be for a few short decades from now. Kagome … Kagome will be gone sooner than that. Once you obtain the Shikon jewel … she will have to go back to her time.”

Inuyasha’s eyes went dark like old copper instead of bright gold at those few statements. ‘They will go. They will grow old and apart from me while I … stay the same. They will die. But Sesshoumaru is eternal.’ Still a formless niggling of doubt and fear kept Inuyasha from conceding the point to his older brother.

“It’s incest, Sesshoumaru.” Inuyasha said the word incest as if it were poison to him.

“That is a human taboo, Inuyasha. You are a demon.”

“Half-demon, which also means half-human really, as you were so fond of pointing out to me before,” Inuyasha said gently.

“You are a demon. You are my brother. You are one of us … not them.”

“What would Father think?” Inuyasha asked his voice suddenly small and uncertain, still wary of bringing up their shared parent with Sesshoumaru.

“I think he knew … about us being destined for each other. He said something to me before he died. I remembered it a moment ago … that is what made me think of going to the Seer. But I know it would not have disgusted him, Inuyasha. I think it was one of his … hopes that we would care for each other. And there is no deeper caring than being joined to one another.”

Inuyasha exhaled, letting the thought that their Father would have approved, maybe even had approved of this … relationship, thing, love, want, whatever it was … between them. Some of the tension crept out of his body. But not the desire … the heat of Sesshoumaru’s body above his, the sight of his brother’s naked muscled stomach and chest with some of his silken strands of hair hanging down over it rushed in to take the place of where the tension had been. He imagined that considering where Sesshoumaru was sitting on him that he knew exactly how Inuyasha’s body felt about their joining. His body was very pleased but very greedy and wanted so much more than just the still weight of his brother on top of him.

“We’re not … private here, Sesshoumaru. Even though Jaken is giving his best impression of a stone statue over there.”

Jaken started at the sound of his name. He had been listening very closely anyways to the brother’s conversation and, though he would never admit it, watching the reflection of the demons in the pool. He quickly scurried away to Rin’s side, screeching for her to stop feeding Ah Un that weed as it would make the poor beast sick.

“And if we were in private, little brother?” Sesshoumaru’s lips twitched into the semblance of another smile.

‘Two smiles in one day from him. That must be a record.’ Inuyasha tried to stop the chuckle from coming out. “I’m no good with words, Sesshoumaru. You know that.” Inuyasha reached up with his hands to clasp his brother’s face and bring it down to his own.

The kiss was gentle at first and chaste, completely closed mouth. But Inuyasha saw stars behind his closed eyes. ‘So good … so fantastic … so … ohhhhh!’

Sesshoumaru also fell into mindless sensation, drowned in the soft full lips of his little brother that slowly parted. His tongue slid in and found his brother’s. Then it became liquid heat between them, not knowing where one began and the other ended.

Inuyasha pushed Sesshoumaru off him, even as his body screamed at him not to. “Stop. We’ve got to stop or else … else I won’t be able to and that … that can’t happen here. Not yet.”

“You’re right.”

“I’m right? Could you repeat that? My older full-demon brother just said that—mmphg!”

This time Sesshoumaru silenced Inuyasha with another breath-stealing kiss instead of a finger. When he drew back up for air, Inuyasha looked sufficiently dazed that speaking was probably beyond him.

“You’re older, wiser brother agrees with you that this … field … is not the place he wants to make love to his beautiful but cheeky younger brother. Satisfied?”

Inuyasha nodded dumbly, his hands fluttering up to his kiss-bruised lips. This was one injury he hoped would keep happening on a regular basis, so regular that it never healed.

“We should … gather everyone together, Sesshoumaru.”

“Yes, probably. Rin and Jaken are right over there.”

“Why don’t you wait with them while I go get the others.”

Sesshoumaru’s carefully controlled his expression at that. ‘Wonderful, another round of Kagome weeping and alternately trying to create a canyon in the ground with Inuyasha’s body. And Inuyasha will undoubtedly pull away from any show of … affection between us while his companions look on.’

Inuyasha had begun to understand just a little his brother’s closed expressions, so he gently repeated, “I have to go find the others, Sesshoumaru. I’m worried about them. Kagome--”

“Should be grateful that you are so good to her despite her insistence on thrusting you into the ground when you do something that displeases her.”

“She’s normally not like this. Really! She’s a wonderful person,” Inuyasha cursed his own inability to communicate properly when he saw the small frown lines appear on Sesshoumaru’s forehead then. “Please … please, understand that for her … for me, too … this is a complete change. I used to believe that I … loved her like I lo--feel about you, Sesshoumaru.”

Sesshoumaru warmed at Inuyasha’s slip of the tongue, but he kept his voice cool and his reasoning practical. He was absolutely not giving in because Inuyasha admitted he loved him. “I won’t stop you, Inuyasha. Besides, Kagome can sense the shards of the sacred jewel, so she will be useful in tracking Naraku again once we finish with the Seer. The monk and demon slayer have behaved quite … bravely in the recent past. So they, too, may be useful. Just … do not ask me to like having to share you with them.”

“I won’t. I do understand.”

Sesshoumaru regretfully got up off the hanyou, extending his hand down to help Inuyasha stand. For a moment, they stood just looking at each other with their hands clasped.

“Find your friends now, Inuyasha, or so help me I might not be able to let you go,” Sesshoumaru growled and Inuyasha swallowed hard, but not out of fear.

Inuyasha then nodded, already sniffing the air to determine his friends’ direction. Just as found the particular scent of his companions and began to lope towards them, he gave one parting line to Sesshoumaru over his shoulder. “Hey! Sesshoumaru, you might want to get your armor back on! Now that your body’s all mine, I don’t want to see anything happen to it!”

To Inuyasha’s shocked ears, Sesshoumaru laughed. ‘Such a beautiful sound from such a beautiful creature. And he’s mine. Oh, gods, he’s mine.’